When Mockingbirds Cry
by jaguarspot
Summary: Was Katniss really so defenseless against the mockingbirds in the second arena? Or was there a way in which she could have fought them back? Here is my idea of what could have happened if she had tried to act different. Set during CATCHING FIRE.


**This is my first story. I hope you like it. I'm Mexican and English isn't my first language, so please take it easy on me.**

**When mockingbirds cry.**

She couldn't stand it anymore. She just couldn't. Finnick's pained figure in the floor told her he couldn't either. It was just too much. After all she had been through, after all she had done, and now she was going crazy because of all the cries. She had tried to kill them, she had tried to make them quiet, but now she had ran out of arrows and there was nothing she could do but cover her ears and try to stop the screaming torture. This was the worst torture the capitol had ever come up with, forcing tributes to listen to the pain of all their loved ones. Her mother, Prim, everyone! Katniss looked at Peeta, on the other side of the glass, with a great despair in her eyes; Peeta looked back, his eyes full of impotence and pain.

There was nothing he could do. They both knew it.

Katniss dropped herself to the floor.

Her mom, Prim, Gale, Madge, Rory, Vick and even Posy, little helpless Posy.

Katniss was desperate; the birds were mimicking everyone she loved in pain!

Everyone she loved was in pain.

Everyone she loved was in pain…

Was everyone she loved in pain?

"Not everyone" she thought. There was a voice missing, a loved one's voice the birds were not using, she knew that, but… whose?

If only the mockingbirds could be quiet for a second, then maybe she could remember. Because she knew she had to remember, she didn't know why, but she knew that it was very important for her to remember.

But the birds wouldn't go quiet, and again, she heard them all… her mom, Prim, Gale, Madge, Rory, her dad, everyone!

Wait a second… her dad?

Her dad was dead, she knew that, but still, she was sure she had heard him. Although there was a difference, the sound hadn't come from the mocking birds; she had heard it inside her head. And he wasn't crying in pain either. He was singing.

Memories struck her like a rock. Memories of her father singing… "And when he sang, even birds went quiet and listened". Memories of her father singing in the center of a meadow with hundreds of birds listening.

Then another memory struck her, a memory of her and Peeta in the cave the previous year: "then you sang the valley's song, and I swear every bird outside went quiet"

And then she knew. She knew there was a way to make those devilish birds quiet. A way to defeat the capitol on its own trick once again, a way to save Finnick and herself from going insane.

But would it work? She knew she had made mockingjays quiet, but a mockingbird was completely different, it was a mutation, one of the capitol's little toys.

Well, she had to try didn't she?

So she stood up, she gathered all her courage and looked straight into a little camera she had been able to notice while she was shooting, and she started singing.

She sang with all her heart, with all her might. She sang about her father, she sang about the woods that had fed her for so long. She sang about her family, she sang about the games, about how the games forced mere children to kill each others, about how their families were forced to watch everything and celebrate it, she sang about her friend Rue, and about how she had had to die to entertain the masses. She sang about pain, and love. She sang about love, and if someone had asked her in that moment if she was singing about Peeta, or if she was singing about Gale, she wouldn't have been able to tell.

At first nothing happened. The birds were still crying with their human voices, Finnick was still on the floor and they were still in pain.

Then, slowly, something started happening. One of the birds went quiet and looked at her. Then another one. Then another one! One by one they all stopped singing, and turned to look at her. One by one all of them gave her their attention; one by one they all tilted their heads slightly to one side, listening respectfully to her song. At some point of it even Finnick, easing his sobs for a moment, turned to look at her, listening.

Because her voice was as beautiful as her father's.

She sang and sang, knowing that if she stopped, the birds would most likely start crying again. Then something else happened. She had been singing for around ten minutes, when some kind of trapdoor opened itself on the floor. Out of it came a metal pipe that started throwing some sort of red dust into the air. Suddenly Katniss' neck started hurting. Badly. She tried to keep singing, but just groans came out of her mouth.

The capitol! They surely weren't happy about how the tables had turned, and were decided to turn them back. Katniss' horrified gaze met Finnick's, and they both turned to the mocking birds. They hadn't been hit by the dust. Then, all at once, like if they had rehearsed it, the birds' beaks opened again.

Katniss covered her ears. Finnick covered his ears. The birds started crying.

Then both of them uncovered their ears and looked at each other in amazement. The birds weren't crying. They were singing!

It was like they had all been paying attention to Katniss' song, and now they were repeating it! They all sounded exactly like Katniss had, and with so many voices singing it together, the song sounded even better.

It was unbelievable, without even thinking about it, Katniss had turned the Mocking birds against their masters for the second time in their history! They were singing against the capitol in the middle of the hunger games! The mocking birds had certainly been a mistake from the capitol, as they were proving once again. Apparently, even after so many years, and after having been created by the capitol itself, the mockingbirds refused to act as they were supposed to, and kept showing the capitol, however unwillingly, that they couldn't be controlled, and that they weren't as predictable as their creators had thought.

The game makers were surely very angry because, before the hour was over, all the birds suddenly stopped singing and flew away, called by their hidden masters. Soon they had completely disappeared.

Finnick was looking at Katniss in awe. When the glass wall finally disappeared Peeta ran to them and hugged Katniss. It took them a while to explain what had happened, and soon Finnick wasn't the only one looking amazed.

They all knew what Katniss had done. She had defied and defeated the capitol once again, and in an even more spectacular way this time. She had beaten them at their own game. They were sure that the game makershad turned off the cameras while she was singing. They were also sure that before they did that the audience could have heard something. But they also knew that the cameras would have been turned back on when Katniss was forced to stop singing so everyone could see her defeat, and that no matter how fast they had turned the cameras off again, the districts would have heard some part of the song, they would have noticed that the fact that they were turning the cameras off again meant that they had something to hide, that she had won once again. They would notice that the birds were singing against the capitol, sending a message of hope and rebellion. A message that said "if we, a bunch of small singing birds, can defy the capitol, why can't you all do the same?"

At the arena and the command centre everyone knew what Katniss had done.

She had battled the capitol, she had humiliated the capitol and she had defeated the capitol.

She had won a Battle.

And she had started a War.


End file.
